There’s no reaction, however; a dead body does not feel. Without conscience and operating only on instinct, the scorpion goes about his business, crawling over the clownish chin, stopping briefly at the permanently fixed grin of the mask, delicately exploring the slightly open lips beneath that mask with one leg, then creeping over the plastic cheeks, traversing the mask’s hollowed-out eye sockets with its underlying real lids now closed, and finally exiting down the purple-wigged head.
This drama is played out alongside Highway 93/95 near Tonopah where cars gallop by at 75 mph, the humps and bumps of this poorly maintained desert highway less gracefully navigated. Beyond the highway, the Sierra Nevada Mountains rise up, resembling the bosoms of well-endowed females. Here and there snow crisscrosses the mountain tops, like delicate Victorian lace that’s been stretched across these busty bodices.
Beneath these mountains stand a couple of “shady” ranches like the Cottontail and the Playmate, offering free coffee and showers to truckers naive or desperate enough to stop. These houses feature white sides with brightly painted trims of hot pink or lemon yellow, in eternal states of decay, windows covered and darkened, gravel driveways sporting semis parked at funny angles.
On the ground, the clown sleeps, deeply and forever, oblivious to the heat of the rising sun, the mountains, the scorpion threat, the ranches’ happenings, and the whizzing noises of passing cars. It’s only when a Nevada State Trooper catches a glimpse of something purple mingled with the tall tufts of sagebrush that the clown performs for an audience one last time.
* * *
Later, in Las Vegas, along a well-maintained and smooth road, the bright blues, reds, and greens of neon lights cause Tonopah’s desert features to fade. The colors of Egypt are there in burnt sienna, dark blue and gold, also New York with its ads for cheesecake and pretzels, Rome with its cream-colored marbleized statues and intricately carved cornices, and Arabia with its gold and purple satiny splendor. Concrete is sculpted to look like the Giant Sphinx, plaster like a blue sky; gauzy fabric is draped like Scheherazade’s veils. It is nearly impossible to figure out what, if anything, is real.
At Circus Circus, they’ve discovered a clown costume is missing, including a purple wig.
Meanwhile, the dead, purple-headed clown has been removed from beside the highway, and the evidence has been processed. The only things found in the desert dust around the body are tire tracks, flecks of gray paint, a cell phone, and an Albertson’s receipt for aspirin and lipstick dated two days ago at noon.
Pictures and casts are taken of the tire tracks, as Officer Judy McDonnell observes, “The body’s been dragged from a waiting car. See those slide marks there in the dust where the wind can’t reach.” Her hair is too red to be natural, and her coral rouge makes her look like she’s perpetually blushing.
After the flecks of paint are also bagged, Detective John Swanson places that evidence bag on his palm. “The tire impressions and these bits of paint will help determine what type of vehicle was parked here.” His dark, slick-backed hair shines almost as brightly as his freshly polished shoes.
“So, you think this receipt came from the victim?” Officer Judy McDonnell asks as she studies the receipt through its clear plastic bag.
Swanson shakes his head. “Hard to tell, but I think we should head over to that store to see if anyone remembers someone matching our vic’s description.”
Later the Chief Medical Examiner, gray-haired and bespectacled Louise Randall, positively identifies the victim from his driver’s license picture. He’s Charles Macon, a 42-year-old resident of Kalispell, Montana. The cell phone they found is listed as his contact number.
From a call to Macon’s girlfriend, whose number is in the dead man’s phone, Det. Swanson learns that Macon was a wealthy rancher who arrived in Las Vegas three days ago for a fun getaway weekend with another couple, Craig and Maxine Coswell, and his girlfriend, Melissa Wright.
At first, Melissa can’t believe Macon is dead. “Are you sure? Is this really a policeman calling?” she asks.
“Yes, ma’ame.” That’s strange, Det. Swanson thinks. Who else would call you about a suspicious death? “You’re welcome to call the station and verify my identity. We need you to come down to the morgue to identify the body.”
Later, when Melissa arrives, Swanson is surprised by how young she is, not more than 25. She hauls off and slaps Macon’s face hard, of course with no reaction from the corpse, and then puts her pocket-sized mirror to his nose to confirm that he isn’t breathing. Det. Swanson finds both these gestures odd. She then touches his arm gently.
After her brief validation of death, Melissa then jerks her head away and starts to cry. Through tears, she adds, “Yeah, that’s him.”
Swanson finds it noteworthy that she doesn’t ask how he died. Upon questioning Miss Wright, Swanson learns the following:
“Charlie and I have been together for two years. It’s been an exciting time for me because he loves to travel, and we’ve been all over the world, you know, dinner in Paris, breakfast in Madrid, tea on the Nile.”
“It sounds like you liked Macon a lot, or at least the lifestyle he offered you,” Swanson offers.
“I love, I mean, loved Charlie. He’s always been good to me.”
“Tell me about the night he disappeared.”
“He left about 10:00 p.m. from our room to gamble at the Blackjack table, at least that’s what he said,” Melissa sobs. She holds a handkerchief to her nose and dabs at tearing green eyes with deep red rims. A patchy line of black mascara lies smeared beneath each eye. Her nose is twice its normal size and matches the color of her eye rims. She must normally be a beautiful woman, with fine bone structure, blond highlighted hair, and full lips that still retain a little reddish lipstick. Right now, she looks much older, her skin blotchy from crying, bags under her eyes, lips trembling in a disconcerting way.
“I was tired, so I went to bed. I slept deeply until about 4:00 a.m. At that time, I realized Charlie still hadn’t returned, so I got dressed and went downstairs to find him. Not seeing him in the casino and not wanting to disturb Craig and Maxine’s sleep, I decided to keep searchiing on my own. I got in my car and drove around the Strip, in case he’d decided to gamble at another location.
“I didn’t find him, though, even after stopping at half a dozen casinos and walking through their main lobbies to look for him. I decided to give up and head back to my safe hotel room, after receiving wolf whistles, cat calls, a couple of pick-up lines, and a marriage proposal.”
She sobs, “I shouldn’t have given up.” Another bout of crying besets her, and Det. Swanson offers a “Take-your-time-I-know-this-is-hard” comment. Swanson hands her a tissue and pauses while she composes herself, placing his hand over hers.
He’s pretty sure she really cared about this guy. Either that or she’s a great actress. Judging from his driver’s license picture, he didn’t seem like anything special. What did she see in him, except maybe greenbacks?
She nods her head when she’s ready for Swanson to continue the questioning.
“Weren’t you worried at that point?”
She takes a deep, shuddering breath. “No, not really. Charlie is . . . was a top-notch jokester, so I figured this was another of his practical jokes. That’s why we had to stay at Circus Circus, you know, to satisfy his carnival-like personality. That and the fact that the rooms are more reasonably priced, he said, than further down the Strip. He was kinda a cheapskate, in some ways, though he was always generous to me.
“Anyway, I was just too tired to keep looking for him at that point and returned to my room at 5:30 a.m. to get some more sleep. I was on alert though, going up to my room, thinking he’d jump out from behind a parked car or potted plant with a scary mask on, or pop out from around a corner yelling ‘boo.’ He was always doing stuff like that.” She forms a little half smile in remembrance.
“When I returned to my room, I kept my cell phone on in case he grew tired of the hide-and-seek charade. I expected he’d show up later in the morning, chuckling, finding whatever he’d done as amusing as he always did.”
“He was a perpetual joker then?” Swanson asks.
“Yeah, it was his delight in life. Even in bed, which wasn’t that delightful at times.” Her brows knit together, causing a vertical crease in her forehead.
“Can you tell me what kinds of things he did, other than in bed that is?” Swanson clears his throat in embarrassment.
“He was always doing something dumb. You know, like hot pepper sauce on a toilet seat (which burns, by the way), Superglue on a cardboard cup, Vaseline on a doorknob, that kinda stuff.” She pauses and looks Swanson in the eye. “I had to wait for the Superglue to wear off before I could remove the remainder of the cup.”
“That must have been hard,” Swanson encourages.
She dips her head. “There were times when I grew tired of the nasty, comedic stuff that was funny only to him. I asked him to stop pranks like the Superglue, since my fingers wouldn’t come apart for a week.”
“And did he stop?”
“Well, yeah, he stopped playing those kinds of tricks on me, but he still played the nastier jokes on friends and co-workers. He claimed it was his creative outlet.”
“Do you suppose that’s why someone dressed him up in a clown costume?”
“Very possibly, or, knowing Charlie, he coulda done it himself. He thought he was God’s gift to that kinda humor, which he probably was.” Melissa wipes her nose with the tissue and takes another shuddering deep breath as her sobs begin to subside.
Swanson adds, “If someone did dress him up, then that person had to know him well. The clown suit was apparently stolen from Circus Circus.”
She shrugs. “Yeah, could be . . . although I wouldn’t put it past Charlie to steal the costume himself with a plan to give it back. He didn’t believe in doing anything illegal.”
Swanson tilts his head. “Would his practical jokes have been reason enough for someone to kill him, do you think?”
“No, I don’t think so. I mean, yeah, he made people mad sometimes, but nothing serious.” Her eyes enlarge. “That’s really an awful thought. Do you think someone murdered him?” An involuntary tremor ripples through her body.
“The preliminary cause of death seems to have been a heart attack,” Swanson replies, “although we’ll know more after we get the blood tests back. . . . Why don’t you continue on with your story? You said you arrived back at the hotel around 5:30 a.m. What happened after that?”
“When I woke around 8:00 a.m. and found that he still hadn’t returned, I was pretty pissed. A joke’s a joke, but really, he’d crossed the line . . . again (she stretches out this last word to almost three syllables). Then I thought, shock of all shocks, he might actually be on a winning streak and lost track of time. I ordered breakfast from room service and waited to hear from him.”
Melissa asks for a glass of water and dabs at her nose. Swanson gets her some water from the nearby cooler in the hall.
She sips at the water and then continues, “When 9:00 a.m. came, I telephoned Craig and Maxine, who said they hadn’t seen him either. That really worried me, and I notified the police. They told me he was dead. Heart failure, they said.”
“Yes, the Nevada Highway Patrol discovered his body a little after 7:30 a.m.,” Swanson adds. That clears it up for Swanson as to why Melissa didn’t ask how Macon died.
She adds, “I hope you’re right he wasn’t murdered. I’ve heard about Vegas, you know, its high crime rate, with murders double those of say, San Diego. I tried to convince Charlie we didn’t need to come here to gamble, coulda stopped in Jackpot, Winnemucca, or Reno and been much safer. He wouldn’t hear of it though. Said there was nothing like Vegas for action, both in and out of the casinos.” She shakes her head and endures another set of tears falling from her eyes.
After a few moments, she asks, “Do you know when he died?”
“The ME can’t pinpoint the exact time of death, but she believes it was somewhere between midnight and 5:00 a.m.”
“Oh, if I’d just kept looking for him,” she says desperately, her voice rising in pitch.
“I don’t think there was anything more you could have done,” Swanson says with a reassuring tone.
He neglects to add that Macon had also been stung by a scorpion. Because the venom didn’t circulate through his body, however, the ME believes the sting was incurred post mortem. There were also bruises on the body around the back of the lower legs and under the arms, but again, the coroner stated that those were caused post mortem, probably caused by the body being dragged.
Swanson chooses not to relay this additional information, however, as it might only heighten Melissa’s emotional state. He ends the interview, thanks Melissa profusely, gets her contact information, and asks her to stay in town until his investigation is complete.
The detective then questions the Coswells.
Craig and Maxine Coswell have been waiting their turn outside in the hallway, and Maxine hugs Melissa in passing, telling her how sorry she is.
The Coswells are a middle-aged couple, in their 40s, both graying at the temples. Craig has a long scar across his nose and a moustache, and Maxine has penciled-in brows, full red lips, and a matching red sweater.
Det. Swanson invites Craig into the interrogation room, a windowless cube with a two-way mirror on one wall and a hidden recording device, while Maxine waits outside. After introductions, Swanson urges Coswell to tell him about the chain of events the night before.
Craig often shifts his weight in the chair as he speaks and drums his fingers on the table. “Charlie and I headed off in our rental car to gamble at other casinos on the Strip besides Circus Circus, and we gambled together until about 1:00 a.m. when I drove Charlie back to the hotel. I dropped him in front and drove around back to park the car.” He drops his head. “That was the last I saw him alive.”
“Did Macon have a history of heart trouble?”
Coswell studies the table. “Yes, he had a heart attack about ten years ago, before I knew him. But he was watching his diet and losing weight.” Craig’s voice breaks as he says “weight.” He pauses, swallows, and adds in a quieter voice, “Everything seemed to be all right. He said he felt better than he had in a long time.”
“I’ve learned from Melissa that Macon was a jokester. Did he ever play tricks on you?” Swanson asks, leaning forward. as if willing a truthful answer from Coswell.
Craig sighs. “Sure, he was always doing some dumb thing since we met three years ago, cayenne pepper in my coffee, chocolate laxative in my cookies. I told him to knock it off a while ago though, and he did.”
“So, you were good friends?”
“As good as I could be with him. I sometimes thought that playing those tricks was his way of keeping people at arm’s length, so he never had to get close to anyone.”
“Including Melissa?”
He shakes his head. “I don’t understand that relationship. She should be off doing stuff with people her own age, but instead hangs around him like a puppy. They seemed to get along great, and he appeared to be good to her. But how does anyone know what happens behind closed doors? He also claimed he was great in bed, but that could have been another one of his jokes.”
“Are you sorry he’s dead?”
“Definitely. I’m sorry to have lost a good friend, although I have to admit I won’t miss his practical jokes.”
“Okay, I think that’s all the questions I have for now, Mr. Coswell, but I’d like you to stay in town. I’d also like your cell phone number, in case I need any more information from you.”
Coswell, now visibly relieved, relaxes his shoulders and rises slowly. After providing Swanson with his contact information, he leaves, and Swanson invites his wife Maxine into the interrogation room. He offers her a cup of coffee, which she holds close to her face, bathing in the steam. She too seems nervous.
Maxine states she was in their hotel room when Charlie arrived, and he and her husband left about 10:00 p.m. to gamble again, after gambling for a while after dinner. She then watched some TV and went to bed after the news.
“And when did your husband return?”
“About 2:00 a.m.”
“So, you weren’t asleep?”
“No, I was, but Craig turned on the light, in his usual thoughtless way, and proceeded to undress for bed. That woke me up, and I couldn’t get back to sleep. But I think neither could Craig because I didn’t hear him snoring for a long time. Usually he starts the freight train a few minutes after dozing off.
“If I haven’t found sleep already, it’s practically impossible by then. At home I sometimes go into another room if I want to get rested. You can’t do that in a hotel, however, in the middle of the night.” She shakes her head.
“And you’re certain your husband didn’t get out of bed again?”
“Nope, because I always wake up when he does, for some reason,” Maxine offered. “Maybe it’s the unaccustomed silence.” She smiles weakly.
Swanson leans forward. “So, what did you think of Charlie?”
“He was a freak, in my opinion. A real jerk. I don’t know why Craig wanted him as a friend.” An angry look crosses her face. “You’re sure he’s dead, right? I mean, this isn’t a joke.”
“The police don’t joke about death,” Swanson offers.
Maxine looks visibly relieved and even inhales deeply like she’s been holding her breath. “Why was Macon a real jerk?” he asks.
“Let me tell you about just one of his so-called jokes. Two weeks ago, without my knowledge, Charlie switched my laptop at work with another that looked just like it, but that had a virus on it. I couldn’t even get the damn thing to boot up. Of course, I discovered that all my business files were gone when we finally managed to clean out the virus.
“Needless to say, I panicked. I spent hundreds of dollars getting a computer geek to try and retrieve my files, which of course he couldn’t because they were never on that computer. Talk about your sleepless nights. Even Craig didn’t think it was funny. . . . I really don’t know why Craig wanted him as a friend.”
“You said that already.”
She nods. “Maybe they were two of a kind, a couple of jerks. Anyway, a week later Charlie tells me that my computer is safe and sound and that he’d actually backed up my files on the Internet, to make sure they wouldn’t be lost when he disconnected the computer. So thoughtful of him, he said. Ha!
“He also thanked me for fixing his unusable computer that now didn’t have a virus on it. He thought it was a pretty funny joke, one of his best, he said, but I just thought he was sick. He thought nothing of creating that kind of anxiety for anyone who knew him.” She frowns and shakes her head.
“Both Melissa and your husband claim Macon had stopped playing tricks on them because they were fed up as well.”
“Is that what they said? Well, maybe you should ask them again about that.”
“Why?”
“I think you’ll find there’s more to the story. But that’s their business, not mine. Anyway, I’m not sorry that he’s dead, and I’m really glad to be rid of his tricks. Since he was my husband’s friend and I found his sense of humor revolting, I had as little to do with him as possible.”
Swanson and McDonnell next decide to visit the Albertson’s store on the Boulder Highway, the source of the register receipt found at the scene. They’ve discovered from the lab that Macon’s fingerprints are on the receipt. They arrive about noon, hoping to find the same clerk who was working the day of the purchases.
Matt Clemons, a young, acne-riddled man, was working that day and remembers a couple matching Melissa’s and Charlie’s descriptions enter the store and buy the items on the receipt.
Matt states, “The woman apparently had a headache and had run out of lipstick. I helped them find the aspirin and the cosmetics. She seemed angry at the man for his replacement of her real lipstick for joke lipstick which changed to blue upon application. Her lips were a deep blue, and she claimed she was unable to remove the color. I remember her because of the lipstick and him because of his greeting.”
“Oh, why’s that?” Swanson asks.
“After thanking me for my help, that guy reached out his hand for a shake, and when I grabbed it, I got an electric jolt from a hand buzzer the jerk had concealed in his palm. He laughed hysterically, while I tried to shake the fiery tingling sensation out of my hand.”
When McDonnell and Swanson arrive back at the precinct, the ME’s report has arrived, declaring that Macon’s death was caused by a massive heart attack, precipitated by either physical exertion or shock. The report also states that he was well over the legal limit of alcohol, which could have aggravated his heart condition, and the ME found traces of cow’s blood in his hair and on his face.
What on earth does cow’s blood have to do with the case?
Detective Swanson thinks it strange that Coswell neglected to mention Macon’s intoxication during his interview, and Melissa failed to mention the blue lipstick. She claimed Charlie had stopped playing jokes on her, but that apparently wasn’t so.
Swanson calls Coswell back to the precinct to ask him about Charlie’s drinking. The detective escorts him into an interrogation room where Coswell states, “Charlie was my friend, and I didn’t want to make him look bad if I didn’t have to. You know they give you those free drinks in every casino, I guess hoping you’ll gamble more if your inhibitions are loosened, but Charlie didn’t seem that far gone. He could hold his liquor pretty well.”
“What did you do in the hour after you dropped Charlie off and before you joined Mrs. Coswell in your hotel room?”
Coswell looks down. “I gambled at Circus Circus. I was on a roll and thought my luck would hold. It didn’t.”
Det. Swanson then asks, “Did Macon win any money?”
Coswell shakes his head. “Charlie lost over $10,000 and dreaded telling Melissa about it. Of course, he hardly ever won, sometimes losing more than $10,000, so she was not in favor of his gambling. They really were a mismatched pair.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Well, she was the sensible type, careful with money and people’s feelings, and Charlie was anything but,” Coswell declares. “I was continually surprised that she chose to stay with him.”
Swanson rubs his chin. “You told me earlier that you two had been friends for three years, is that right?”
“Yeah, and that was a long time for Charlie to maintain a friendship. He went through friends like a duck through water, as you can well imagine. Some of his jokes were particularly hurtful.” He sighs.
“Did he ever play those kinds of hurtful jokes on you?” Swanson asks.
“Me? No, I was pretty immune lately, which is probably why we were still friends, but my wife, well, did she tell you about the computer?”
“Yes, she did.”
“To me, that kind of joke is anything but funny.”
“Did you know about Melissa’s blue lipstick?”
Coswell finally looks at Swanson. “Yes, Charlie told me about that. Things like that are why their relationship is such a mystery. I mean why stick with a guy who exhibits that kind of juvenile behavior?”
“Do you have any idea why Melissa would lie and tell me that Charlie didn’t play jokes on her anymore?”
Coswell raises his eyebrows. “She did? Maybe she was embarrassed. Or maybe she was afraid you’d suspect her of doing him in. Which is a ludicrous thought, by the way. If you haven’t noticed, she’s not the sharpest pencil in the box.”
“Did Charlie have life insurance?”
Coswell shrugs. “Don’t know about that. If he did, his kids would probably be the beneficiaries.”
“Charlie had children?”
“Yes, two from a previous marriage, a marriage which ended because his ex could no longer abide his jokes. His kids can’t stand him either. Charlie pays a hunk in alimony and child support every month though. Somehow that seems fair.”
After processing Coswell’s information, Swanson then decides to re-question Melissa about Macon’s joke playing and why she lied about it.
“You told me that Macon no longer played tricks on you, but that’s not exactly true, is it?”
“Oh, you mean the blue lipstick?” Melissa seems calmer since the last interrogation. Her eyes are no longer red around the rims, and her emerald green eyes are startling in both hue and clarity. Swanson figures she must wear contacts to achieve that bright and deep of a shade.
She’s also donned new makeup, a short red sundress which reveals all her curves, and a pair of high-heeled glittery red shoes with ankle straps that emphasize her petite legs. The overall effect is that of a fashion model, although she is wearing a jarring red lipstick that doesn’t match her blonde coloring.
“Why didn’t you tell me about the lipstick?”
She bats her eyelashes at the detective and states, “Well, I didn’t find that joke upsetting.”
“Interesting. That’s not what the Albertson’s store clerk said.”
“Charlie and I had this little game we played. He would do something naughty, and I would pretend to be upset. He seemed to like that. If I just laughed it off, which I did in the past, he usually upped the ante and did something ornerier and more hurtful the next time. It was easier just to play along and pretend to be pissed. That usually meant I’d get at least two weeks before he tried something new and usually an apology gift in the meantime. The last one was a very big diamond pendant.
“And the blue lipstick really wasn’t so bad. It wore off by morning. Charlie was more careful about playing jokes on me that had no long-lasting effects, since I put my foot down.”
Swanson scowls. “You didn’t tell me the whole truth last time.”
“Well, I didn’t think the lipstick thing mattered. Most people didn’t understand our relationship, but I understood Charlie. He was good at keeping people at bay, but not me. I was one of the few people he let inside. I knew everything about him and understood his reasons for the jokes. At heart, he really was a gentle person.”
Swanson smirks. “Some might say you stayed with him for the money. Would you have been interested in him if he’d been poor?”
“Well, I have to admit that the money was good, and Charlie was very generous. But there were a lot of other things about Charlie to love. We were gonna get married, did you know that?”
“And you’re sure he wasn’t joking?”
“No, I have an engagement ring.” She offers her left hand which showcases a crystal-clear round-cut diamond of at least two carats sporting four smaller marquis-cut diamonds on the side, all set in white gold.
As if following his thinking, she asserts, “Yes, it’s real. I had it appraised.”
Swanson kicks himself for not noticing the ring before. It seems to engulf her finger.
Melissa adds, “I wasn’t wearing the ring when you questioned me earlier. That was because all the time I was here in town, I was afraid someone would steal it. You know, the high crime rate and all. After Charlie died, I decided to take it out of the hotel safe and wear it in honor of him.”
“When was the wedding going to happen?”
“We were gonna get married while we were here, with Craig and Maxine as witnesses. He just hadn’t told them about it yet. We planned to go to one of those cute little chapels on the Strip this evening. That’s why Charlie insisted on Las Vegas and not Reno or Winnemucca. He said the chapels were nicer here.” She let out a deep sigh, and tears filled her eyes again.
“I see. I wish you’d told me all this initially,” Swanson chides.
“None of it has anything to do with his death.” She raises a finger. “Oh, and one more thing I want to tell you. I think what actually made Charlie propose was the joke I played on him. I had one of my friends call him up and tell him I’d left town with another man, a co-worker. She told him I’d fallen in love and didn’t have the courage to face him.
“Charlie was upset, of course, and called me right away. I said ‘April Fools’ when he called, and he laughed his head off. He said I was the perfect girl for him, and that’s when he proposed. We went ring shopping the next day. He also said, after we were married, he would change his will to include me, the sweet thing.” She smiled, showing brilliant white teeth.
“How much was he going to leave you?” Swanson asked.
“He told me it would be enough to keep me happy for the rest of my life,” she answered. “Of course, that could have been another one of his jokes, but I think he was sincere.”
“Okay, we’re about done here. So I guess Mr. Coswell is the only one who really was immune to Macon’s jokes,” Swanson adds.
“But that’s not true. Did he tell you that?”
Swanson nods.
“That’s not what Charlie told me right before he died. He said he pulled a good one on Craig. He didn’t go into particulars but said he was waiting for Craig to get him back at some point. They were always having these little ‘joke duels’ I called them, where each would try to outdo the other. I think Craig was as much of a jokester as Charlie was.”
“Really?” Swanson couldn’t keep the surprise out of his voice.
“Yep, and they both seemed to enjoy their little competitions.”
“Thank you, Melissa. You’ve been very helpful.”
Swanson then inquires about the lab report regarding the tire treads and paint flecks found at the crime scene. His colleague, Jim Hamilton, has run a picture of the tread marks through the computer and determines they are almost new tires that could have come from several makes of SUV, including a Jeep. The other CSIs find that the flecks of gray paint came from a very specific model of Jeep, a Grand Cherokee.
When cross-matched, the paint color and tire treads match a 2015 Jeep Grand Cherokee in billet silver metallic. Swanson then pulls up all the cars matching that description in the Clark County DMV database. There are about 20 of that year and model in the Vegas area, and he hopes the car he’s looking for isn’t from out of town.
The majority of in-town models are registered to a rental car company on the strip, DJ’s Car Happenings. Swanson phones them to see if a car matching that description was rented on the day of Macon’s death. There were two such cars rented that day, one by a Matthew Hardington and the other by Craig Coswell. Swanson learns that the one rented by Coswell was returned with a caved-in bumper, which explains why the paint flaked off.
Swanson rubs his head and paces the room. He’s worked so many of these kinds of cases in Vegas, but he still feels excited when the real truth emerges.
It’s time to talk to Coswell again.
When Coswell comes in this time, beads of sweat appear on his forehead, and his breathing seems accelerated.
Swanson starts out slowly, his voice soothing and quiet.
“So, Craig, did you rent a 2015 Jeep Grand Cherokee on Friday, the night of Macon’s death?”
“Well, I’m sure you’ve found out that I did,” Craig replies. His face is ruddy, and he can’t look Swanson in the eye. “Charlie and I got tired of using taxis or walking to get everywhere in town. We decided that we’d rent a car we could both use if needed.”
Swanson leans over the table, putting his face into Craig’s face. “Well, we impounded that car and found your fingerprints all over it. We also found several of Macon’s. This will go easier for you if you tell me the truth.”
Coswell turns, looks away and stares at the floor for what seems like an interminable amount of time. Swanson just waits patiently. Coswell finally looks him in the eye, sighs, and says,
“When I first met Charlie, he had just played a joke on a friend of mine that involved chewing gum and cayenne pepper. You can probably infer what he did, but let’s just say I was impressed with both the joke and Charlie’s boldness in executing it. I think there’s always been a jokester inside of me, but I was too afraid what others might think if I let that inclination out. Charlie brought out the best side of me, my jokester side, although I guess some, like my wife, would argue it was my worst side.
“After that initial meeting, Charlie and I began a friendly feud that’s lasted these past three years. We constantly played jokes on one another, keeping our skills honed and practicing new tricks on each other. You quickly grow tired of the same conventional types of practical jokes, however, and want to do more and more complex tricks as time goes along. We set ground rules though, one of which involved waiting at least a month between jokes, so that neither of us would get burned out or have our feuds interfere with our normal lives. We also said we wouldn’t do any unethical or illegal.
“Of course, Maxine said that one of the ground rules for her was that we wouldn’t play any jokes on her, or else she would leave me. I agreed, and Charlie appeared to agree, but, of course, he didn’t have anything at stake.
“Things were going well when Charlie suddenly broke the rules. He played that joke on Maxine’s computer just two weeks ago, and then three days ago, he played a joke on me, the kind of hurtful, below-the-belt joke that I thought we’d agreed not to play. First, he hid Melissa’s lipstick and replaced it with a joke lipstick that turned her lips blue.”
“Yes, she told us about that.”
“Well, what she probably didn’t tell you was that the replacement lipstick he made her buy was red.”
“No, but what does that have to do with it?”
“You obviously don’t understand the significance of that request.”
“’fraid not,” Swanson states.
“Normally Melissa, being a blonde, doesn’t wear red lipstick. She always uses a pink color, while my wife Maxine, being brunette, usually wears red. Charlie made Melissa buy that red shade, telling her he liked that color on Maxine and wanted to see it on his special girl, but mostly, unknown to Melissa, because he wanted to use it in his joke. He smeared the new lipstick on his white shirt collar and told me that he and Maxine had fallen in love and that they were going to run away to Mexico. He had also bought some of her perfume and dabbled it on himself, so he smelled like her.
“I bit, hook, line, and sinker. Maxine and I hadn’t been getting along that well lately, so it was certainly plausible. Charlie knew that and used it to his advantage. He found my duping hilarious and laughed so hard that tears came to his eyes. He said he’d gotten the idea from a trick Melissa played on him. I decided from then on the joking stakes had been raised, and our ground rules had flown out the window.
“That’s when I planned a joke of my own. I encouraged Charlie to imbibe all during the evening of his death. When he asked me how many drinks he’d had, I lied and told him he’d had many fewer than he actually consumed at each casino. It took a lot to get Charlie drunk, so I encouraged him to drink in our after-dinner gambling session, but even after hours of drinking, he wasn’t really soused until almost 1:00 a.m.
“Finally, he was unconscious as I drove him in the Jeep up to a tree trunk. He didn’t even stir when I bumped the tree pretty hard with the car, then scooted him over to the driver’s side, taking his left arm out of his sleeve, putting it inside his coat, and depositing a real-looking fake arm hanging out of that same sleeve, as if his arm had been detached. I had purchased that arm and a pouch of fake blood earlier at one of the novelty shops here in town. I poured some of the blood over the arm and a little on Charlie’s head, so that it would drip down over his face.
“If Charlie had been sober, he’d have known the whole thing was a fake, but in his drunken state, he was convinced of the truth of the situation. On the passenger side, I had poured the rest of the blood on myself and proceeded to moan and groan as if in agony. Charlie looked at the fake arm and at me, tasted the blood in his mouth, and apparently had a heart attack.
“At the time, I thought he’d simply passed out again. I waited for him to wake up again, but he didn’t. That’s when I felt his pulse and realized his heart had stopped. By the time I recognized that fact, it was too late to get him to a hospital or even give him CPR.
“I was at my wit’s end. I was just trying to pay him back for the lipstick and perfume gag.” Coswell slumps over the table, burying his head in his hands. “I didn’t want him to die. Just be a little scared. He told me his heart problems were under control, and I believed him. I guess the final joke is on me.” He laughs sourly through his grief.
Swanson is amazed by this revelation. That was not the story he expected, but he still has one final question. “You’ve cleared up everything nicely for me, except for why you dressed him in the clown costume?”
“He was my best friend, and I tried to think of a way to pay tribute to him and offer him a final performance, a grand and notorious exit to leave them laughing. As a perpetual showman, he would have been pleased, I think, to be discovered that way, in the clown costume, you know once a clown, always a clown. I saw the news today, and they were still talking about the clown they’d found. He would have loved that.
“I also left him close to the highway where I knew, with the purple wig, he’d quickly be found. I didn’t want any animals getting to him. I suppose good intentions don’t figure into the law though, do they?”
“No, the law is pretty cut and dried. What you did is still considered manslaughter in this state.”
“But I didn’t intend to kill him. I loved that guy, in a manly sort of way of course, and that’s no joke.”
Swanson shakes his head and grabs a pair of handcuffs from his utility belt, which he promptly snaps onto Coswell’s wrists. “And neither is this,” he says, with finality.